Feeding America Releases 2014 Map the Meal Gap

Feeding America, nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief charity, has just released the 2014 Map the Meal Gap report. This data helps the Feeding America network, including the Federation of Virginia Food Banks and its members, better understand the problem of hunger down to the local level.

The concept of the “meal gap” is an idea that helps explain the gap between meals available to individuals and meals needed by individuals. This report also uses local prices and income levels to determine the funds needed to close that meal gap. A more complete explanation of this concept is located here.

Map the Meal Gap’s food insecurity rates are determined using data from the 2001-2012 Current Population Survey on individuals in food insecure households; data from the 2012 American Community Survey on median household incomes, poverty rates, homeownership, and race and ethnic demographics; and 2012 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on unemployment rates.

If you would like to dig deeper in this data or data from around the country, please visit Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap page.